Some parents heard that bone age can predict a child's height potential, so they quickly rummaged through the Internet to find out which hospital is the most accurate to check the child's bone age. They took their children to check in a daze and didn't even know what the bone age was. What exactly is bone age examination? How to help children grow up scientifically and spend their bone age? Next, Dr. Li will talk about bone age and height.
Bone age is simply "the age of bones", which generally refers to the level of children's bone development. Bone age measurement mainly shows the child's bone age and development through X-rays.
At birth, a considerable part of human skeleton is still cartilage structure, and the osteogenic structure is not fully developed. By taking pictures of children's hands or wrists with X-rays, we can see the development of children's bones by comparing them with normal X-rays of all ages. The growth of bones is regular, but the difference from the actual age is basically no more than 1 year. If the difference between the bone age and the actual age is too big, it is necessary to consider whether it grows early or late.
The detection of bone age is still very meaningful for children. First of all, the detection of bone age can predict the height potential of children. Through the test results, it can help to analyze whether the child is low or high in height, and then adjust the diet and nutrition, adjust the work and rest, so that the child can play its maximum height potential. At the same time, bone age detection can also help to judge whether the child has endocrine disorders such as auxin deficiency, precocious puberty and late maturity.
Secondly, the detection of bone age is also used in the selection of sports personnel. Take gymnastics as an example. I think everyone has found that gymnasts are not too tall. This is not caused by practicing gymnastics, but when selecting gymnasts, some children who will not grow too tall will be selected according to the bone age test.
It can be seen that the detection of bone age plays a very important role in predicting the height of children in adulthood, judging whether there is abnormality in growth and development, and selecting sports personnel. The detection of bone age has also become one of the methods to accurately identify children's growth and development in medicine and biology.
Is it possible to predict the height of a child as an adult by taking a bone age film? Does the height of a child depend on age or bone age? What is the relationship between the two?
A child has two ages from birth to adulthood. One is what we call time age, and the other is bone age. The age in time changes with time, and the growth of one year is the same for everyone. Bone age is different. Some children grow up early, and their bone age may be one or two years older than time. Some children grow late, and their bone age may be one or two years younger than their age.
Bone age can reflect the growth rate of bones. It is difficult to tell whether a child is tall or short only by looking at his age and not at his bone age. There are many factors that affect height, and it is one-sided and unreliable to measure a child's height only by age.
The child's height will stop growing one day. Is it age or bone age that determines a child's height? Dr. Li wants to tell you clearly that "bone age is an important factor in determining whether a child can grow taller."
This is because human long bones have cartilage at both ends. When a child is in the growth stage, the cartilage at both ends will continue to grow. At the same time, the epiphyseal cartilage will continue to secrete osteoblasts to promote ossification, and the child will slowly grow taller. However, when the child becomes an adult, the epiphyseal cartilage ossifies, and the spine and epiphysis are closely attached together. That is to say, once the epiphyseal line is closed, the child will not grow again and his height will be fixed. From this perspective, the height of a child is closely related to the bone age, not to the age.
However, it should be noted that the change of bone age is uncertain. Some children may have a long bone age of half a year, and some children may have a long bone age of 2~3 years in half a year. It can be seen that the change range of bone age is still very large. There are several criteria for judging whether a child needs to have a bone age examination:
Of course, bone age has a certain relationship with age. After parents have checked their children's bone age, they can judge their children's development according to their bone age.
Therefore, compared with the actual age, height and weight, bone age can more accurately reflect the growth and development of children. Children before and after puberty, it is best to check their bone age, especially those with precocious puberty tendency. What is the reason for the child's big bone age and short stature?
When parents find that their children are too old and too short, they will inevitably start to worry and try their best to change their height. So what causes the child's bone age to be too large?
There are many reasons for bone age, some of which may be genetic, but there are also some bad habits in life. Now all aspects of life have become more advantageous, and parents are more willing to let their children eat better and dress better. Like some families with better conditions, children often eat meat and some nutrients, which often leads to overnutrition, premature obesity and old bone age.
In addition, there are many kinds of food and a wider range of choices. This makes it easy for children to be picky about food. They prefer some unhealthy foods, such as fried chicken, barbecue, hamburgers and coke. However, these foods contain a lot of oil and sugar, which can easily lead to children's obesity and precocious puberty, leading to older bones.
So, what should older and shorter children do?
First of all, what we should do is to control the weight of older children with bone age. If the weight continues to rise, the speed of bone age change will also accelerate, and even the phenomenon of precocious puberty will become more serious. Some parents choose to suppress the change of their children's bone age by giving them growth hormone, which is one of the most effective and rapid methods at present.
But it should be reminded that not all children are suitable for taking growth hormone, and this method is more aimed at children with growth hormone deficiency. Even short children, as long as the body is not short of growth hormone, even if they are given hormones, it will not play any role.
At present, growth hormone drugs are relatively safe and reliable, and there will not be too many side effects in the later stage. For children who have taken growth hormone, they should also pay attention to taking their children to the hospital for regular check-ups and pay attention to their physical changes. So if children need to take growth hormone, when is it appropriate to take it?
This depends on the specific age of the child. It is generally believed that it is more appropriate to take hormones after the age of 4. When children reach the age of growth and development, they often miss the best opportunity. Therefore, parents should pay attention to the height change of children, do bone age examination as soon as possible, and seek the help of doctors in time if they find that their children are older.
Checking a child's bone age is not something that can be done casually. If you are not careful, you will easily fall into some pits. Attention should be paid to the detection of children's bone age.
Children should pay attention to the age of bone age measurement.
The best age for bone age detection is 3 15 years old. Different age stages have different detection significance, and it is only necessary to detect bone age at a specific age. Doctors suggest that you can have a test at the age of 4 or 8, or during the period of rapid growth in height (1 1~ 13 years old). Unless it is necessary to judge the degree of precocious puberty and evaluate the growth potential of older children, it is not recommended to repeat the test within one year. Generally, it only needs to be tested once every six months to one year.
Beware of some informal institutions.
Some parents care too much about their children's height and tend to trust some unfair medical institutions. However, the orthopedics, endocrinology and developmental departments of general hospitals can check the bone age of children. If you don't know which department, you can consult your local doctor. Beware that some black-hearted institutions or research institutes want to make money from it, claiming how precise and accurate their equipment is to check bone age, which leads many anxious parents to be deceived.
Whether the child is fat or thin, it is necessary to check the bone age.
In the past, due to poor dietary conditions, children have been thin and high, and some parents are worried that nutrition may not keep up. But nowadays, with the continuous improvement of living conditions, more and more children become obese. Parents think that obese children are not tall because they only grow meat and are not tall. In fact, obese children need to check their bone age. Avoid the increase of hormone levels in most obese children, leading to precocious puberty, causing epiphysis to close ahead of schedule and stop growing taller.
Pay attention to the incidentals of bone age.
Some parents are always worried about their children's height, so once they find their children in a backward situation, they are anxious to know how old they are. Parents think that the technology of checking bone age is very high-end, and often some hospitals or institutions make a fuss, charge high fees or sell some health care products that can grow taller. Many parents are willing to invest more money in this, but these are all blind behaviors. Therefore, parents should also be careful not to waste money when checking their children's bone age.
Don't rely too much on bone age detection.
The height of a child is influenced by many factors, which does not mean that a child can grow a few centimeters taller by measuring his bone age several times. The way of bone age examination is more just to help judge whether the child is precocious or backward. For the bone age test, parents should be calm, not too superstitious and not too exclusive.
Generally speaking, bone age test can observe the height of children in time. It is necessary to pay attention to the situation that the child's height is low and high, so as to better guide the child's later growth and development.
At the same time, when checking children's bone age, parents should also be alert to some traps, try to choose regular hospitals and institutions, and beware of being deceived. If the child's bone age is too large, he should also consult a doctor in time and actively cooperate with the doctor to better help the child improve his growth and development. Let children grow up healthily and scientifically.
I'm Dr. Li. The child has a healthy skeleton. I will take care of them!